


A Warning of Things to Come

by Tapeworrm



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: AU where Goodsir seems to possess some kind of precognition, Angst and Drama, Blood and Injury, Cannibalism, Canon Compliant, Character Study, David Young's death is taking a toll on Harry, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description of Corpses, Horror, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intrusive Thoughts, Mental Health Issues, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Spirits, Stanley being stanley, Supernatural Elements, a good old ghost story, about:, i just really wanted to write something in keeping with the genre, little bit of tenderness, typical victorian attitudes towards divination and spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:46:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tapeworrm/pseuds/Tapeworrm
Summary: Just a stupid dream Harry, a fanciful thing. Not real.David Young had just been hallucinating, as Dr. Stanley had put it. Nothing more.So why did his dream, his vision, seem so strangely connected to that somehow? Flashes of vast ice, the sound of flesh ripping – a repulsively wet and mucus filled sound - the sound of chewing, of gagging, the smell of chemicals and tin, a tent ceiling, blood on broken glass. All happening at once in a horrid flurry of grotesque sound and sensation in his mind.
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir & David Young, Harry D. S. Goodsir & Stephen S. Stanley, Harry D. S. Goodsir/Stephen S. Stanley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	A Warning of Things to Come

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with the idea that Goodsir seems to be capable of seeing or connecting with spirits easily, and having some sort of precognitive ability. Perhaps it's his emotional openness which allow this, but it makes for a genre-fitting Gothic Horror. I also think the show itself hints at this on multiple occasions, which i'm fully on board with!
> 
> The Victorians really seemed to believe in the idea of spirits and specifically communicating with them, or them sending messages, as we can see presenting in the show itself. I wanted to try and convey a sense of that. Also a sense of horrible foreboding, perhaps reminiscent of 'The Shining' type visions.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

_It was only a dream,_ thought Harry, _just a silly little dream_.

Not real. Didn’t mean anything. Not at all. No sir! A child’s nightmare!

If that was so, then why was it clinging to the insides of his mind like cold, hard tar on a wooden board? Why had vivid flashes of it crept up on him as he was trying to shuffle some papers on his desk? Just innocent papers, an innocent desk, and innocent little job; but no, here came that dream from last night. There it flashed, fully formed in motion and sound and Harry found his eyes squeeze shut immediately, a small moan of disgust exiting his tightly pursed lips. Almost a physical pain as it bought white heat into his brain, his eyes jammed shut so tight against the onslaught that he could see red and white spots blooming in his eyelids.

Just a stupid dream Harry, a fanciful thing. _Not real_.

David Young had just been hallucinating, as Dr. Stanley had put it. Nothing more.

So why did his dream, his _vision_ , seem so strangely connected to that somehow? Flashes of vast ice, the sound of flesh ripping – a repulsively wet and mucus filled sound - the sound of chewing, of gagging, the smell of chemicals and tin, a tent ceiling, blood on broken glass. All happening at once in a horrid flurry of grotesque sound and sensation in his mind.

What had David Young seen a few nights ago? He could have _sworn_ that he could have glimpsed whatever it was from his peripheral, in the darkness, where Young had been staring and screaming, but as soon as he turned his head it was gone. The shape of it flattened out against the shadows there, like a reflection on a darkened window melting away when you snuff out the lamp. It left the hairs standing on the back of his neck and arms at the memory and he gritted his teeth, feeling ten degrees colder.

He was aptly aware that he now stood in the very same room where it had happened. Where Young had died. Where the shape had appeared to the boy. To them both. His hands were cold and shaking on the wood of his desk. He felt the cold dead eyes of David Young staring at him from where he had been dissected and disembowelled. Another noise of repulsion in his mouth and bile rose in his throat with it, he swallowed it, feeling it burn.

Why did he get an identical feeling from his dream last night? As if it was planted there on purpose, a warning of things to come. All the snippets of images and sounds and smells obscured in some dizzy, blinding haze, melting them together entangled in a scorching white light which screamed ‘ _DANGER!!GET OUT!!!!’_ so loud inside his head that it threatened to split his skull. He had woken up, bolt upright, eyes wide and blank as painted windows. Body bathed in a cold sweat and mouth dry. He hadn’t been able to sleep after that, simply waiting for his duties this morning. Watching as pale, dreadful light began to creep from his tiny window brighter and bleaker by the minute. Over and over repeating to himself _it was just a dream Harry, just a dream just a dream just a dream_ until it didn’t sound like his voice anymore, hoarse and distant in the room.

Normally dreams would be forgotten, melting into insignificance in the bright daylight. But here it was again, returning to him in burning hot flashes behind his eyes no matter how hard he clenched them shut. No matter how he curled his fists so tight against the table that they went numb and slipped with sweat. No matter how even he tried to get his breathing, it was trapped in his throat, lingering, and threatening to push out a horrified scream should he set it free. Horror swelling and swelling and swelling inside him until Harry was sure he would just bubble up and burst. His flesh crawled and his face felt cold and slack, just dead skin on the outside with hot terror convulsing beneath. Slack and dead as David Young had been, heavy and pale and cold.

“Everything alright, Mr. Goodsir?”

It was Dr. Stanley, somehow Harry had forgotten he was also in the room. Harry’s eyes flew open and his head jerked up from its position where is had sunk low on shoulders as he stooped against his desk in silent, wailing agony with himself. His eyes felt like hot, dry pebbles in his head, his body shaking all over. Barely able to stand. The dream pulsed in the back of his mind, menacing. That man just wouldn’t give him a break today it seemed. Can’t a man spiral into his abysmal thoughts in _peace_ around here?

“Yes.” It was a strange sound, choked and unusually indecisive. Hurried and devoid of warmth. Breathless.

“No.”

“Yes, I assure you I’m fine” God, why did he have to fight about everything with this man? “I just…” what _just_ was it, Harry? Spit it out, why are you shaking Harry? Why are you wavering Harry? Why on earth are you leant over your desk, sweating, and shaking and wavering all at once, Harry? Have a bad dream, Harry? A bad little nightmare? The humiliation of confrontation tingled in the air.

“Just…?” Stanley had stopped what he was doing now, my god had he even _looked up_ from what he was doing just to observe? “Mr. Goodsir?”

“I just don’t feel very…uh, well” That sounded stupid, he _felt_ how stupid it had sounded coming out of his sorry mouth. He didn’t bother turning around to face Stanley, he didn’t need that extra level of condescension. “I’m just not quite feeling myself, is all.” He added uselessly into the silence.

There was the sound of the examination table creaking as Stanley must have turned to lean upon it to monitor Harry, making it complain under his bulk. Harry didn’t turn around. He tried to carry on organising his papers, but it seemed like a lost cause now, especially with his sweating hands making marks on the ink. _(The smell of chemicals and tin.)_

“Come here.”

Harry’s mouth suddenly dried out, his head felt light. That was an order.

Oh, he’d really done it now, a rabbit in a snare. If he didn’t comply, if he just stood rooted to the spot feeling sick and itching with humiliation, then things would just get worse for him. He had to turn around. He had to walk over to Stanley on legs that felt heavy and weak. He had to face him, and worse, he had to do it now. No prep time, Harry, step up to the operating table please. Watch in horror as Chief Surgeon Dr. Stanley cuts you open, clean and sharp. A rabbit in a snare, skinned for tea. ( _The sound of flesh ripping – a repulsively wet and mucus filled sound.)_

“I won’t repeat myself.”

Harry stiffly turned around, eyes wide with dawning terror and face draining as he approached the tall, formidable frame of Stanley, slowly. Guiltily.

“Yes?” He managed, looking up and _up_ at him with quiet horror, anticipating a reprimand. The tendons in his neck creaked. _‘How can you be an assistant surgeon on this ship and give in to such abominable fancies, Mr. Goodsir’_ he imagined him barking, _‘how can you be so_ weak _?’_ his entrails felt hot and loose, he was numb from the throat down. All eyes and ears. Waiting.

_((RUN! IT WANTS US TO RUN!!))_

All that came was silence. Stanley just gazed down at him, cold and screened with serious intent. Harry felt no softness for this face, any charm he discovered in it from his day-to-day observations of him were long forgotten. His face was so hardened and guarded it felt like it would topple down onto Harry, like a mask falling from a wall. It seemed so perfectly still, all that moved were the cold eyes within, flickering over Harry’s face in long sweeps. Unreadable. Was Harry shaking? Was he puffing air from his nose rapidly? Were his eyes widened with utter dread? Were those his own hands, shaking and clutching the buttons on his coat? ( _Hot blood on broken glass.)_

All at once, he felt one of Stanley’s hands pressed gently to his forehead. So gentle and warm, he had assumed he was fainting, and he nearly did. Nearly swooning as the tension and fear left him all at once, he let out a ragged and surprised gasp of air from his chest, one he didn’t know was in there at all. He could have melted under his touch, and he daren’t ask himself why. His mind abruptly blank and peaceful.

“You do feel quite damp, Goodsir” Stanley’s voice was at such a low register and it enveloped Harry unexpectedly with it’s warm and gentle undertones, “Perhaps a little hot” he tallied, and added another hand to Harry’s shoulder lightly to stable him.

“Oh.” It was all he could croak. He hoped it managed to convey the idea that he was shocked by this analysis, yes very interesting thank you Doctor. _If you examine all your patients like this Doctor, you will give someone a heart attack_.

Stanley’s hand brushed away Harry’s curls softly, and Harry’s eyes nearly closed at the sensation. He nearly sighed as he stood there, swaying slightly. A flush rose in him, white-hot and prickling his face. Shame. Something was not right with him. Why was this happening to him? Was he not capable enough to control his emotions? Was he that frightened of his own thoughts that a simple touch was so quick in undoing him? In numbing him.

This very man, whose hands gently studied his brow and soothed him now, was the same one who had turned a blind eye to what had happened on the night of David Young’s death. This man had sat comfortable in his berth, protected, and spared, whilst Harry was subjected to incorporeal horrors far beyond his own understanding ( _But surely, nothing happened? Did it?)_. This man, who answered him with nothing but coldness and annoyance and scepticism in his time of need ( _in need of what?)_ , now presumed to think he could touch him like one of his own patients. That he could soothe him now. Harry felt his jaw clench, bile still burned his throat.

So warm and heavy were the Doctor’s trained hands upon him. His cool fingers pressed into the searing heat of Harry’s neck for his temperature there, the hand on his shoulder squeezing him. It was too much all at once, revolted by the sudden anger he now felt, how dare this man fuss about him now; and yet it was not enough. What was wrong with him? It felt sickening, the touches felt invasive and like they were infecting him. Repulsion. _Oh, how pathetic you are Harry_. How he felt the churn of loathing deep within himself and yet he _needed_ this, his body rang with emptiness and his nerves sang like wires, crying out to be calmed regardless of what his thoughts said. He was haggard and worn. And how he hated himself in this moment. How can such a callous man have such soft hands?

When he was a younger man, Harry remembered he had been walking home one evening and quite innocuously happened upon a large stray cat, hunkered down under a streetlamp, merely a blob in the dark. It wasn’t until Harry had inched closer did he hear the shrill, minute squeals of a rodent. Harry remembered as he had watched with appalled fascination as the cat had held down a small brown mouse under its delicate paws. How it had toyed with the thing. How cruel it had seemed. But most of all Harry remembered the look in the mouse’s little beady eyes. Black and shining. Empty. How soft and defeated it had laid. No attempt to run away. It just simply lay there, breathing impossibly fast, and giving in to the feline’s punishing game. Submitting to it. Waiting for death. For consumption. Screaming through those black eyes, wide and blank as marbles. A cadaver on a slab, not yet dead. Undead in its fright.

Did that cat also check the mouse’s pulse in his neck and hold his face this gently. Pawing at him, sharp claws hidden beneath.

He opened his eyes, oh god when did they close? He opened them now, startled at how quiet it had become, how easily he had slipped away from himself. He opened them and looked straight into Dr. Stanley’s face. He was aware of his heart thudding nauseatingly at the ease with which he had become vulnerable, but it was muffled under the tension he felt in his head as he simply stared up, confused with himself. ( _You’re losing it, you were never cut out for this Harry, one dead boy and you’re going mad, you were never tough enough for this job, you’re destined for Bedlam Harry – (blood on broken glass.))_ The thoughts sounded thin and strained like they weren’t his at all but imitating him. He swallowed them with the bile.

“You feel as though you may be running a fever, Mr Goodsir.”

Those hands rested neatly either side of Harry’s whiskers, not exactly touching him but gently hovering there as to manipulate his face. Harry let himself be manipulated, first left and slowly right as Stanley observed the whole of his pallid, sweating face. The motion made him feel dizzy, looking up, then slowly he was looking at the medicine cabinet, and then back to Stanley, and then to the other side of the room and back again. An awful kaleidoscope of swerving scenery that he couldn’t focus on, that became blurry and distant. _(Images of a tent ceiling, blood on broken glass- IT WANTS US TO RUN!!)_

He shut his eyes to it, letting out a noise of despair. Swaying on his feet. At this point he couldn’t care less about Stanley observing him, he felt immediately safe in the darkness of his eyelids. Bright lights and buzzing pressure running around his skull. _Thud, thud, thud_ of blood in his temples, bowels feeling hot and loose with a lurch. _(The smell of chemicals and tin.)_ Blood dropped out of his head, draining colour from his face, leaving him dizzy and light, pooling hot in his knees and he worried he might faint, but it felt like his feet were nailed to the floor from the enormity of his fright and misery, so he just swayed, like a tree in a breeze. Like a hanged man on a rope.

He felt the pads of the Doctor’s fingers ghost on either side of his neck, no doubt feeling his jugular pulse, and his breath caught at the softness against his flesh and the queasiness it made him feel. The noise in his mind quietened. He breathed out slowly.

“Dear me.” Stanley uttered somewhere above him. He felt him breath out sternly across his face.

“I’m sorry” he heard himself mumble thickly, unsure of why he said it, but it felt right. “I just don’t feel well, Sir. Not at all actually.” His voice faltered dangerously, his closed eyes acting as a confessional booth where he now felt safe enough to speak anonymously. The confides of a cold empty blackness. Tears welled within but remaining trapped, stinging. He felt his mouth pull down briefly, betraying him, nevertheless. Even in confessionals the priests can hear you crying. There is no escaping the shame of being known. Even alone in the darkness there is always a version of yourself watching you with shame, creeping like some great slithering, oily beast.

He jolted when he felt hands come down onto his shoulders evenly and firmly, gently. It nearly folded Harry to the floor. Refusing to open his eyes, he felt himself stumble blindly, guided smoothly, towards the examination table where he was gently encouraged to sit. He still didn’t want to exit from the dark confides of himself, feeling himself draw in, head bowing, and hands clasped in his lap, sweating and shaking like the rest of him. It felt dreamlike. Spinning in the dead dark. _You’re sat where he died_ his mind whispered but he didn’t want to address it, couldn’t address it, leaving it to slide down his back biliously.

“I’m going to give you a quick look over, Mr Goodsir, for you cannot expect to work properly in such conditions and, despite being a man of training, seem to have neglected to take care of yourself” the words were officious and clipped, but far off in the world of Harry’s darkness, as though concealed by a great black smoke. If he didn’t see it, it couldn’t hurt him. But that shameful eel twisted inside of him at the grating tone all the same. After all, he _should_ be expected to look after himself a little better than this. _(A flash of blood on broken glass, a tent ceiling)_ and he grit his teeth, sweating. _You’re sat where he died! You’re sat on him!_

In the dark he could sense a body in front of him, a little warm breath hit his cheek and he felt himself coiling up tightly, nearly flinching from it. Wound up so tight he was sure any minute now he would hear his bones begin to crack. With his eyes closed like this he was suddenly bought back to when he had been a child, _close your eyes Harry and the monsters will disappear_. With this regression came the flesh-crawling feeling that whilst your eyes were closed, whilst escaping into a world of darkness, that the monster you so feared could be stood right in front of you, teeth bared, and you’d never know.

Harry saw the looming, blue-white face of David Young staring at him through the shadows of his eyelids, pallid and gazing unfocused, eyes like two huge marbles in his malnourished head. As if somehow Harry’s contact with the table had summoned him, _(!!you’re sat on him!!)_ letting the boy find something familiar to possess. ( _I was holding him when he died.)_ ( _No_ , _Ridiculous!)_ Young wore that look of terror that he had died with, features moulded by it, like a crude, purple clay mask. Vaguely goat-like, eyes rolling, bleating with panic. The table felt cold through his woollen trousers almost as if it was a cadaver, clammy and hard, winding around the tops of his thighs and holding him there ( _how many men have died on this very table?)(!!I’m sat on him!!)_ And all too suddenly Harry could sense the apparition David had witnessed in the darkness behind him, just where it had been on the night it first appeared, he felt the same energy in the room _._ Multiple icy hands seized his spine and shook it. His mouth ran dry. No, it wasn’t there. It was a hallucination. Right? David’s sad, bloated face loomed closer, pleading, mouth gaping. _((IT WANTS US TO RUN!!))_ This was just a horrible memory. _Harry you’re dreaming while you’re awake!!!Open your eyes, open your eyes, open your eyes!!!_

When his eyes flew open with a stifled gasp and a physical jolt, it was not in fact David Young he saw, but of course Doctor Stanley, leaning quite close to his face. He immediately looked down to where he sat, seeing no dead flesh or cold winding hands. _You’re losing it._ He didn’t want to look behind him. The room felt chilly and constricted and he remained contorted with panic, sweat forming on his face and running down his back. Without realising he had wound away from Stanley’s frame almost until he was twisted right in half. He looked up at him now, trying to breath, eyes blank and body shaking. Stanley continued to observe his face as calm as though he were reading a rather boring book.

“I’m going to need you to relax, Mr Goodsir” He uttered softly, eyes grazing over the sweat on Harry’s face with disinterest, “You of all people should know that these examinations do not intend to harm you.”

_Yes, but do YOU not intend to harm me, Doctor?_

He banished that thought, sharp like vinegar and wholly uninvited, almost as though it came from outside his head. _Fight or flight, Harry, that’s all this was._ A fear response to a bad dream. Nothing more. He locked eyes with Stanley now and slowly unwound himself, warily, breathing shakily from his nose. Afraid to even blink lest he saw that horrible, looming, pale face of Young again.

“Good, thank you.”

It was a professionalism that Harry heard him offer multiple times to patients. He knew full well that this was the type of man who was incapable of feeling gratitude for anyone who wasn’t himself, or above himself. He thanked him the same way an angry paternal figure would thank his unruly son to _‘stop squirming, sit up straight, and behave thank you very much!’_

Harry sat there, forcing himself to feel like one of his training cadavers back in his student days, detaching himself, disembodying. It wasn’t difficult to manage, seeing as his body felt sickeningly empty and cold, as though carved open and his organs ripped out with haste just like he was trained to do. He was sure that if Stanley wanted to, he would dissect him in a matter of seconds to truly figure out why his assistant was behaving so arduously. This was a man that Harry was entirely convinced was not in any way in touch with his emotions, he would sooner slice apart a man’s heart with the cold steel of his lancet than let it open to him in any genuine way. This was a man of science and there would be no way he could understand Harry unless he could cut him open, pick him apart and see how he ticked. To trepan him and physically examine his thoughts rather than hear them out loud.

 _(Hot blood running over sharp glass)_ Harry’s shoulders jumped, and he sucked in a sharp breath as Dr. Stanley took his wrist carefully with a warm hand, plummeting back to himself as if dropped into cold water, back into his sweating, shaking skin. Something about his skin there was stinging him, something about that specific flash of his dream became overbright in his mind until he couldn’t breathe, staring up at Stanley dumbly, momentarily brain dead with a shock of white light. Immediately he pulled his hand away, feeling a static buzz in his teeth, feeling strangely exposed. The Doctor seemed thoroughly unbothered, frowning only slightly in distain.

“Explain your symptoms Mr. Goodsir, I’d expect you are trained enough to manage that?”

If he could manage to be angry then he would be. To allow himself to retort, to get up on shaky legs and leave the room. But he couldn’t manage anything. He placed his hands firmly on the table, feeling a shudder of sickness run through him from the coldness of the wood _(how many men have died on this table?)_ and swallowed dryly, his throat clicking uncomfortably. Just how was he supposed to form this all into words when it all was born from an event that Stanley had literally closed his eyes to days ago. He had elected to be blind to the matter. How could Harry then go further to talk about the effect this apparently ‘normal’ event was having on him, the dreams he was having, the things he sometimes thought he saw. How could he even begin to discuss this when he didn’t even think this man believed in dreams or spirits to begin with? This was a matter which not only called for emotional gymnastics on the Doctor’s behalf (which he doubted he had the stamina nor motivation to do) but was a general premise which encouraged confronting a subject clouded in uncertainty. This wasn’t something that Stanley could easily just wrestle still and pierce with steel like he could a squirming patient in the operating theatre. This was noncorporeal. Instead, it would leave Harry to be the one who tempted his lancet, it would bring into question Harry’s inner workings because Stanley would not be able grasp the elusive issue of dreams and ghosts. Smoke and mirrors. No, he would dive for the first thing that was solid and blood-filled that he could rip open and scrutinise, and that would be Harry. ( _He’ll call you mad Harry, you’ll be in Bedlam before you could blink, dreams are one thing Harry, but visions!?Hauntings!?)_ but that can’t be what he was experiencing, truly?

Harry had no doubt that these were ancient waters they encroached upon in their ship. That the things which lived here meant to do them harm. Old and forgotten beings trapped under layers of ice, unaware of their Christian God or of their angels. The inverse of an angel altogether…. a demon? ( _Don’t be ridiculous!)_ Spirits and mysticisms were not a new idea to Harry, but he frightened to even think about what kinds of devils lived out there beneath this ancient ocean, isolated and unchristian and…hungry. Perhaps David Young saw such an…apparition. Perhaps it entered into him, or perhaps it still yet lived on this ship, invited in by the stench of disease and death which seemed to cloak them wherever they went. A great rotting vessel floating on a barren and ravenous sea. The smell bound to attract any hungry beast. Miles and miles and miles beneath them, who knows what lived there watching and waiting. God lies in all realms? Harry wasn’t certain anymore. As much as he loved the sea and its bodies of marine life, there was always a certain fear which arose within him when he found himself gazing too long into it. As though something was pulling him in, closer and closer. He sometimes had nightmares where he fell in altogether and sank endlessly down like a house brick, unable to breath and dragged down, down into the darkness. The further and deeper you went, the closer to hell you would become. What ancient beings lurked there? He had always awoken from such dreams with a helpless cry, as if he had been suffocating even as he slept.

 _(Don’t be ludicrous Harry! Demons and devils have no power here! You are shaken up by the boy’s death. And as for him, well he was hallucinating. That’s all. It’s just a bad dream Harry, a child’s nightmare! There is nothing on this ship apart from men.)_ But something about that voice in his head, his sensible conscience, quivered and sounded frail and it made him feel sick. His skin still tingled and thrummed sharply from Stanley’s touch, as if he had been on fire.

“Are you incapable of speaking, also?”

If there _was_ a devil on board, it was destined to be Dr. Stanley and his horrible impatience. Harry felt a temper flare within him, thawing the iciness of his core momentarily, but he did his best to supress it. Everything was becoming overbright and unbearable, thoughts and sounds and visions still raced around Harry’s head and it was almost impossible to think straight at all. Like he was in a constant state of _fight or flight_ like a trapped animal. Like the mouse must have felt under the talons of the cat. His legs shook minutely against the unrelenting coldness of the table, spreading goosebumps up his back and across his chest.

“It’s as I said, Doctor.” He tried, sounding shaky, “I just am not feeling entirely myself. That’s all.” _I had a bad dream and now I think I am being haunted by the ghost of David Young, nothing to worry about Doctor! Oh, and I think my dream was indeed a premonition and I feel something awful will happen if we don’t leave. I can’t tell you what however, because I don’t know. But don’t fuss about it. I’m entirely clear-headed and sane Doctor!_ The bile returned to his throat as he did his best to give Stanley a level-headed gaze.

Stanley stood before him, arms crossed over his broad chest, sleeves rolled up to the elbow as though ready to perform an amputation at any given moment. Ready to flay him open and get the truth at any second. All shoulders and cold glare. A good surgeon naturally relied upon strength, given that he would have to hold his patients down, and many men relied upon several assistants to help them with that, but something brief and cold told Harry that the man before him was capable of restraining people just fine, thank you very much. He had heard the tales of Dr. Robert Liston and his incredible strength and height, allowing him to lean his forearm upon a leg and provide a tourniquet from his strength alone, but never had he been so close to a man of similar stature and strength, and suddenly he was very glad that surgeons vowed to heal rather than hurt people. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that Stanley would indeed throttle him instantly regardless, just for providing disruption to his routine.

“Goodsir, we do not treat ailments of the mood. You are a medical man, are you not? You do know what a real infection is, hm?”

There was a brief silence where Harry felt heat rush to his face and his jaw clench under his whiskers. Stanley kept his gaze with an imperiously raised brow, terminally bored with this whole ordeal.

“I am but exhausted, Doctor” He offered a weak smile, but his face felt like plaster, tight and cracking.

He watched Stanley seem to chew the inside of his cheek and regard him with those glittering eyes, like freshly laid snow,

“I am not one to prescribe a change of scenery or a good night’s rest Goodsir, but I suggest you simply take better care of yourself. We can’t have one man doing all the medical duties around here if you decide to make yourself bedridden.” Suddenly, his hand was on Harry’s forehead again, agonisingly present and he jumped, feeling as though it had appeared to him through a thick fog, “I cannot discern anything physically wrong with you, for that matter, but there is a temperature and, it appears, tremors and dizziness. Both of which can be encouraged with an overactive mind, and weak disposition in a man. Nothing ails you but yourself, Mr. Goodsir.”

Harry felt his fingernails dig into the wood of the table as he stared blindly into the Doctor’s chest, fixating on a button. He could smell ( _tin and chemicals, the sensation of ripping flesh)_ the musk of the man’s clothes he was that abhorrently close. Nothing ailed him but himself? Then why was it David Young’s face that appeared to him whenever he closed his eyes, why did he hear shrieks and cries of men that sounded like echoes, not from a memory, but from a distant future? The visions he saw? Were they truly all just _him_? _Himself?_ Harry almost feared to admit that maybe, yes, there were all just part of an overactive imagination. So why did they feel so real? Why did they intrude upon him without warning, even when he did his best to not think? Like the visions and sounds and smells were scarred upon the meat of his brain, pulsing, and itching, and burning beneath his skull. If this was simply all his own doing, then does that mean he hallucinated David Young’s apparition? Imagined the cold hands that seemed to grip him from the inside? If he did, then what does that say about the state of his mind? The question was rhetorical, but his thoughts provided an answer anyway, without consent (( _you’re going mad, Harry))_ they whispered, almost cajoling. _No._ Was all he could offer.

Still staring absently at a shiny button of Dr. Stanley’s coat, he felt almost as if he was in a different world. In the shade of this man, so close and stooped over him that it felt as though he was imprisoned in a Stanley shaped cage. His mind flashed back to the cat hunched within that circular pool of light cast down from the streetlamp, mouse trapped beneath it, screaming. He couldn’t look at this man, didn’t know what to say, afraid that if he did look, the Doctor would see just how black and empty his eyes were, like marbles. Like the mouse’s eyes. Yet something suddenly felt liminal, like the air was changing around him, and as Dr. Stanley’s hand slipped from his forehead gently, it rested on his shoulder. There was something moving in this moment, something convulsing and curling between them as though they had suddenly garnered a moment of privacy from being so close, like in a room of their own. As though by some unknown force, Harry found his eyes flicker up to meet Stanley’s with goosebumps breaking out down his back, sweating coldly, feeling sick with it. Then Stanley chose to speak, as quietly as he could, softly, as though speaking confidentially,

“I understand Mr. Young’s death was difficult for you. You said something transpired. I don’t know what you think happened, but if I were you, _I’d get myself under control Mr. Goodsir._ For your health.”

Harry watched his mouth as it uttered those words, feeling detached. Feeling like indeed he was imagining things now, surely. The gentleness and deep undertones almost mesmerizing. He felt a coldness creep over him, prickling from his scalp and down his spine. Somehow, the acknowledgment that Stanley could read him so plainly made everything much worse. Made him feel small and vulnerable, like the mouse. Patronised, like a child. He had wanted to be acknowledged, and yet as it happened, he discovered he actually wanted nothing less. He would have preferred to just be sick, to have a fever. To be like a swooning noblewoman with a chill. So immediately was the truth of his problem spoken out loud from the mouth of another man, that he faced it with such a deep twist of shame. Like looking into a mirror and finding your face laughable. Issues that seemed so complex and frightening inside his head now set free into the space between them, into the ether of the room, and dissolving as though a silly little child’s problem. Sounding tiny. Spoken with the same effort as it would take to say, ‘good morning’ or ‘goodbye’. A monstrosity of torturous feeling condensed into a few clinically cold words. Made castrated and redundant, declawed, and muzzled. Underestimated. Grossly misunderstood. 

Everything from that point on felt as though Harry watched himself in third person. As he made his way back to his room, under orders to get some rest, it was as though he floated. Still in shock from the belittling exposure, the disgrace which followed a nakedness. Dogged by an unshakeable feeling of writhing disgust, by how weak he felt, how pitiful he must seem. ( _If I were you, I’d get myself under control) ((under control)) (((for your health)))_ echoed in his mind, adding itself to the collection of all the other noises and sounds and sensations of scraping and ripping and screaming. Forming a noise so loud inside his head that he couldn’t even hear his own footsteps. The sting of being so easily read, how obvious was it that Young’s death was affecting him? How unprofessional did that make him look?

By the time he reached his room, his hands shook so badly that he struggled to even close the door on himself, to lock himself in. The lock felt sludgy and slow, like his hands had no power, like he was still dreaming. He all but crashed his head onto the door, shutting his eyes and gritting his teeth, shaking and sweating in the silence. Not breathing. Worried that if he breathed, he would sob. ( _Flashes of vast ice, the sound of flesh ripping – a repulsively wet and mucus filled sound - the sound of chewing, of gagging, the smell of chemicals and tin, a tent ceiling, blood on broken glass.)((IT WANTS US TO RUN!!))_ He locked the door. _(I’d get myself under control Mr. Goodsir.)_

Silence fell. Only the sound of his heartbeat _thud thud thud_ in his head, in his teeth. Slowly he felt a white-hot tingling at his back as though eyes watched him from the wood of the walls. Faces in the window. Wailing and bleating. His eyes flew open with the fear that if he kept them closed any longer the face of David Young would appear again, screaming and pushing through the wood of the door to meet him. He checked the lock again. Still locked.

_I just need some sleep. Any sleep. (What about the nightmares?) It’s just a dream. Only a nightmare. Nothing more. Forget it Harry._

But even as he fell to his berth, desperate for warmth and oblivion, it was as though cold arms welcomed him in.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me a kudos and comment if you liked this, especially since this was quite an experimental thing for me to write, so it would mean the WORLD!
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> You can find me on twitter @tapeworrrm and tumblr @tapeworrm


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